Part 4 (2/2)
”Yes?”
”She was calling from Champaign, Illinois. A Bertram headquarters they think we don't know about. The phone had one of those guaranteed no-trace devices.”
”Trusting lot, aren't they?” Grant said. ”Have some good men watch that house, but leave her alone.” He stood and felt a wave of nausea so strong that he had to hold the edge of the desk. ”MAKE d.a.m.nED SURE THEY LEAVE HER ALONE. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” he shouted.
Hartman went as pale as Grant. The chief hadn't raised his voice to one of his own people in five years. ”Yes, sir, I understand.”
”Then get out of here.” Grant spoke carefully, in low tones, and the cold mechanical voice was more terrifying than the shout.
He sat alone and stared at the telephone. What use was its power now?
What can we do? It wasn't generally known that Sharon was engaged to the boy.
He'd talked them out of a formal engagement until the banns could be announced in the National Cathedral and they could hold a big social party. It had been something to do for them at the time, but...
But what? He couldn't have the boy released. Not that boy. He wouldn't keep silent as the price of his own freedom. He'd take Sharon to a newspaper within five minutes of his release, and the resulting headlines would bring down Lips...o...b.. Unity, the CoDominium-and the peace. Newsmen would listen to the daughter of the top secret policeman in the country.
Grant punched a code on the communicator, then another. Grand Admiral Lermontov appeared on the screen.
”Yes, Mr. Grant?”
”Are you alone?”
”Yes.”
The conversation was painful, and the long delay while the signals reached the moon and returned didn't make it easier.
”When is the next CD wars.h.i.+p going outsystem? Not a colony s.h.i.+p, and most especially not a prison s.h.i.+p. A wars.h.i.+p.”
Another long pause, longer even than the delay. ”I suppose anything could be arranged,” the Admiral said. ”What do you need?”
”I want . . .” Grant hesitated, but there was no time to be lost. No time at all. ”I want s.p.a.ce for two very important political prisoners. A married couple. The crew is not to know their ident.i.ty, and anyone who does learn their ident.i.ty must stay outsystem for at least five years. And I want them set down on a good colony world, a decent place.
Sparta, perhaps. No one ever returns from Sparta. Can you arrange that?”
Grant could see the changes in Lermontov's face as the words reached him. The Admiral frowned. ”It can be done if it is important enough. It will not be easy.”
”It's important enough. My brother Martin will explain everything you'll need to know later. The prisoners will be delivered tonight, Sergei. Please have the s.h.i.+p ready.
And -and it better not be Saratoga. My son's in that one and he-he will know one of the prisoners.” Grant swallowed hard. 'There should be a chaplain aboard. The kids will be getting married.”
Lermontov frowned again, as if wondering if John Grant had gone insane. Yet he needed the Grants, both of them, and certainly John Grant would not ask such a favor if it were not vital.
”It will be done,” Lermontov said.
”Thank you. I'll also appreciate it if you will see they have a good estate on Sparta.
They are not to know who arranged it. Just have it taken care of and send the bill to me.”
It was all so very simple. Direct his agents to arrest Sharon and conduct her to CD Intelligence. He wouldn't want to see her first. The attorney general would send Torrey to the same place and announce that he had escaped.
It wasn't as neat as having all of them convicted in open court, but it would do, and having one of them a fugitive from justice would even help. It would be an admission of guilt.
Something inside him screamed again and again that this was his little girl, the only person in the world who wasn't afraid of him, but Grant refused to listen. He leaned back in the chair and almost calmly dictated his orders.
He took the flimsy sheet from the writer and his hand didn't tremble at all as he signed it.
All right, Martin, he thought. All right. I've bought the time you asked for, you and Sergei Lermontov. Now can you do something with it?
2087 A.D.
The landing boat fell away from the orbiting wars.h.i.+p. When it had drifted to a safe distance, retros fired, and after it had entered the thin reaches of the planet's upper atmosphere, scoops opened in the bows. The thin air was drawn in and compressed until the stagnation temperature in the ramjet chamber was high enough for ignition.
The engines lit with a roar of flame. Wings swung out to provide lift at hypersonic speeds, and the s.p.a.ce plane turned to streak over empty ocean toward the continental land ma.s.s two thousand kilometers away.
The s.h.i.+p circled over craggy mountains twelve kilometers high, then dropped low over thickly forested plains. It slowed until it was no longer a danger to the thin strip of inhabited lands along the ocean sh.o.r.es. The planet's great ocean was joined to a smaller sea by a nearly landlocked channel no more than five kilometers across at its widest point, and nearly all of the colonists lived near the junction of the waters.
Hadley's capital city nestled on a long peninsula' at the mouth of that channel, and the two natural harbors, one in the sea, the other in the ocean, gave the city the fitting name of Refuge. The name suggested a tranquility the city no longer possessed.
The s.h.i.+p extended its wings to their fullest reach and floated low over the calm water of the channel harbor. It touched and settled in. Tugboats raced across clear blue water.
Sweating seamen threw lines and towed the landing craft to the dock where they secured it.
A long line of CoDominium Marines in garrison uniform marched out of the boat.
They gathered on the gray concrete piers into neat brightly colored lines. Two men in civilian clothing followed the Marines from the flyer.
They blinked at the unaccustomed blue-white of Hadley's sun. The sun was so far away that it would have been only a small point if either of them were foolish enough to look directly at it. The apparent small size was only an illusion caused by distance; Hadley received as much illumination from its hotter sun as Earth does from Sol.
Both men were tall and stood as straight as the Marines in front of them, so that except for their clothing they might have been mistaken for a part of the disembarking battalion. The shorter of the two carried luggage for both of them, and stood respectfully behind; although older he was obviously a subordinate. They watched as two younger men came uncertainly along the pier. The newcomers' unadorned blue uniforms contrasted sharply with the bright reds and golds of the CoDominium Marines milling around them. Already the Marines were scurrying back into the flyer to carry out barracks bags, weapons, and all the other personal gear of a light infantry battalion.
The taller of the two civilians faced the uniformed newcomers. ”I take it you're here to meet us?” he asked pleasantly. His voice rang through the noise on the pier, and it carried easily although he had not shouted. His accent was neutral, the nearly universal English of non-Russian officers in the CoDominium Service, and it marked his profession almost as certainly as did his posture and the tone of command.
The newcomers were uncertain even so. There were a lot of ex-officers of the CoDominium s.p.a.ce Navy on the beach lately. CD budgets were lower every year. ”I think so,” one finally said. ”Are you John Christian Falkenberg?”
His name was actually John Christian Falkenberg III, and he suspected that his grandfather would have insisted on the distinction. ”Right. And Sergeant Major Calvin.”
”Pleasure to meet you, sir. I'm Lieutenant Banners, and this is Ensign Mowrer.
We're on President Budreau's staff.” Banners looked around as if expecting other men, but there were none except the uniformed Marines. He gave Falkenberg a slightly puzzled look, then added, ”We have transportation for you, but I'm afraid your men will have to walk. It's about eleven miles.”
”Miles.” Falkenberg smiled to himself. This was out in the boondocks. ”I see no reason why ten healthy mercenaries can't march eighteen kilometers, Lieutenant.” He turned to face the black shape of the landing boat's entry port and called to someone inside. ”Captain Fast. There is no transportation, but someone will show you where to march the men. Have them carry all gear.”
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